Naperville Balks At Impact-fee Deal With Du Page

February 23, 1989|By Nancy Ryan.

The Naperville City Council has decided against endorsing a proposed agreement with Du Page County on the collection of each other`s transportation impact fees in favor of waiting for a countywide group to draw up a model agreement for all municipalities.

``I think we`re being asked to buy into something that`s basically flawed. It`s not proper to become a partner in something that`s basically flawed,`` Mayor Margaret Price said Monday night after Karl Fry,

superintendent of Du Page County`s Division of Transportation, urged the council to appprove an agreement between the county and Naperville.

Rather than endorse a separate agreement with the county, the council decided at the workshop meeting to vote on a proposal the Du Page County Mayors and Managers Conference is expected to present to all Du Page municipalities by early spring. Each community could then decide whether to endorse the model agreement.

``The county rushed to adopt a fee. Naperville shouldn`t rush to adopt an intergovernmental agreement,`` Brent Coulter, a transportation consultant to the conference, told the council.

The county impact fee, which was originally expected to raise $13 million annually, was proposed last October and approved in late November. Since then, a majority of the county`s municipalities, including Naperville, have refused to force developers to pay the fee before they were issued building permits, despite the county`s requests for help in collecting the fee.

Naperville adopted its own transportation impact fee in December after two years of study by two consulting firms.

Coulter said the conference wants to closely review not only the collection of the fees but also where those funds will be allocated. The conference also wants to examine a model agreement that the county has drawn up.

``There`s been too much focus on the collection of the fees and not enough on how those fees will be allocated,`` Coulter said. ``The conference has said that a group comprised of municipal, county and state representatives should determine where those funds are spent.``

The council made the decision despite Councilman Jack Tenison`s strong support for a separate Naperville-Du Page agreement. Tenison, who is director of the Du Page County Department of Human Resources, said such an agreement would not represent an endorsement of the county`s impact fees, but would ensure that Naperville`s own fee would be collected in adjoining

unincorporated areas extending 1/2 miles from Naperville`s boundaries in which the city has zoning control. It also would protect Naperville from being sued for collecting the county fee, he said.